


One Solid Kick

by copperbadge



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9249791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: Sometimes all the universe needs to be better is one solid kick.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tehnakki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehnakki/gifts).



> I don't care for death. 
> 
>  
> 
> (I mostly blame tehnakki for this, and since I know next to nothing about Star Wars she beta-read and helped me make sure all the terminology was accurate and explained Guardians of the Whills to me. I also blame scifigrl47, just a little. You two are a menace.)

Bodhi Rook was no fool; his life as a pilot had not been peaceful and his life as a defector had been short and violent. He knew that Imperial thermal detonators were time and vibration sensitive. Once triggered, they went off on a timer, but could also be triggered by an impact. If not the impact of landing -- 

Still, he was dead either way.

So in a split second after the detonator landed in the hold of his stolen ship, he ran through his options in his mind and decided to play the odds. 

His leg jerked out, powerful and square-against the detonator in the way a good ship lands in a narrow bay, and he kicked the motherfucker with half a hope that it _would_ go off and kill him instantly, and three-quarters of a hope that it would sail out into the jungle and land harmlessly (or maybe even take out an enemy or three).

The detonator went flying, bounced once, landed against a fuel resupply line, and blew. Bodhi rolled to put his back to the wave of heat and the muffled screams of stormtroopers. 

Then he sat up, looked around, and swore in four languages, because he really hadn't expected that to work. 

***

When Baze fell, he fell next to Chirrut, and though he knew Chirrut was dead some small spark inside him refused to believe it. Just to be sure, and with the last ounce of physical strength he possessed, he lifted his hand three bare inches and laid it on Chirrut's arm. 

The pulse he felt may well have been his own. They would never know for sure. But he felt a pulse, and as he died he wished with half of him that he truly could find Chirrut in the Force -- 

A little under half. 

The larger half, the half that had given up after the fall of the Jedi, the half that protected Chirrut out of a consuming love rather than his duty, did not just wish to find Chirrut. 

After so long, it slipped quietly into the Force, but it didn't go looking for the dead.

***

Across the planet, up thousands of miles to the checkpoint station, and outwards into the battle, there was a ripple in the Force. It was not as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. It was as if one voice cried out and in the silence millions listened. 

On the planet, some stormtroopers shook their heads in confusion, overwhelmed with an urge to run to the aid of someone, somewhere. Some left their posts, trying to find where they should be. 

On the checkpoint station, staff and soldiers yearned to steal a ship and descend to the planet. Most told themselves it was because they wanted to fight.

Above, in the battle raging, pilots and ill-prepared would-be defenders of freedom and generals redoubled their efforts to break through the gate. 

One princess, on a well-protected ship, heard a voice clear as a bell say, _Bodhi Rook, come and find us._

Down on the planet, still pants-wettingly shocked at his own audacity in kicking a detonator and reeling from his near-death experience and continual near-death on this damn planet, Bodhi heard it too. He shook his head, checked the comms, found nothing, and heard it again.

_Come on, pilot, we're waiting._

***

The beam had come, and so had the end of Jyn Erso's already-brief life. 

The Death Star had fired on the planet and she had already seen the tsunami of granite and sandstone devour Jedha City. It was too much to expect to survive her father's shame twice. But her father's masterpiece, lurking within his shame, was on its way to the Rebellion, and that was enough. She would not live to see its destruction, but there was a peace in knowing it would fall after her death. She and her mother and father, Bodhi and Cassian and Baze and Chirrut and K-2SO -- they would have their revenge, all the sweeter because they had died for it.

And anyway when she was little Saw had taught her that it was glorious to die for the cause. She hadn't believed that in a long time but it brought some comfort, here at the end of the world. 

Cassian had his arms around her and both of them were shaking; she felt the shockwave of the blast begin to engulf them -- 

And then, within what she'd thought was the shockwave, the voice of K-2SO. 

"Get in, losers!" 

She blinked, opened her eyes, looked up. The battered Imperial ship they'd stolen was hovering there, hatch open, and Bodhi was standing on the deck. 

"Come on, come on!" he called, and she looked at Cassian, and he looked at her.

"Well, dying heroically is stupid anyway," he said, and they ran.

"Honestly, dying on a beach," K-2SO's voice said as they climbed into the hold, though he wasn't anywhere in evidence. "I'm ashamed of you. Where's my body?"

"Uh," Jyn said. 

"He backed himself up in the ship's navigational computer before we landed," Bodhi said, as the entire ship juddered madly, tilting on its end and streaking through the sky ahead of the impact wave. 

"How'd you find us?" Jyn called. 

"Would you believe a dead man told me?" Bodhi called back.

She barely heard Cassian and K-2SO's disembodied voice arguing fervently about a) why they had let K-2SO die in some horrible Imperial databank and b) why they hadn't even tried to recover his body. When she turned to the nearest viewport, she could see the blast's shockwave, ripping hungrily into the archive tower, obliterating men and machines and vegetation. Cassian, seeing her tense, joined her and stared down at the destruction, body warm behind hers. 

Good Rebels were dying down there. 

She didn't realize she'd said it out loud until K-2SO replied, "Good rebels might be dying up here." 

That was when she realized that the cargo nets had bodies strapped in them, and the smell of charred flesh was in the air. On instinct, she reached for the medikit and unstrapped Baze, who looked like he might still be breathing. Always tend to the breathing first. Cassian helped lift him into a chair. 

"Prepare for the jump to Hyperspace," K-2SO said, and Bodhi said _ARE YOU CRAZY_ and the shockwave outside was replaced with streaks of stars for a moment, and then with a view of distant wheeling planets and the dying battle. 

Admiral Raddus's voice rang over K-2SO's. "Disengage engines for tractor-beam docking, Rogue One." 

***

Back on Yavin -- back _home_ \-- Bodhi walked out of the ship, fell over, and started puking. Cassian, with a regretful look at her, dragged him off to the barracks for some quiet thinking time about what he'd done. 

Soldiers evacuated Baze and Chirrut, both barely breathing, and K-2SO said "I should very much like you to locate a spare droid who's not using their brains much -- " but Jyn didn't hear the rest because she was following the medics. 

***

That evening, Mon Mothma arrived in the medical wing. 

"The medics say they don't know why they're breathing," Jyn said. She'd just sort of sat down in a chair next to their beds and not gotten up again. She wasn't sure where Bodhi was; hopefully resting. Cassian had come to sit with her and fallen asleep wrapped in a blanket under Baze's bed. K-2SO had infected the entire Rebellion base but she'd ignored him and he'd wandered off to pester the droid mechanics into building him a new body. 

"They're breathing and their blood's circulating and I guess they're healing but nobody knows why," she repeated. 

"Once," Mon Mothma told her, "the galaxy was full of Jedi. Throw a rock and you'd hit one. They could have told you."

"The Force?" Jyn sniffed. 

"Speaking as a politician, I never trust anyone or anything, certainly something you can't see, which a religion was built upon," Mothma said. "Speaking as a human being, it's absurd to deny the existence of something when the evidence lies before you." 

Jyn leaned forward, face in her hands. "I thought we were all going to die."

"You are," Mothma pointed out. "We all are. Well, perhaps not K-2SO," she added.

"I have died once already," K-2SO said pointedly, through the speaker on Chirrut's biomonitor.

"And much like your teammates, it doesn't seem to have taken," Mothma said. She patted Chirrut's hand, rising, gathering her robes about her. Jyn wondered idly how she kept them so white.

"Our intelligence informs us that the plans you sent to the Rebel fleet made it as far as Bail Organa's agent before their ship was taken. The agent is in Imperial custody, but the plans appear to have been passed on; there are a few other spies unaccounted-for who may have them. We should retrieve them soon. I'll keep you informed." She paused, and Jyn could see the woman vanish and the politician appear. 

"When you are feeling well and capable," the politician said, "the Rebel Alliance would like to request your presence for a small ceremony. Rogue Squadron is being awarded medals of valor for your actions. Coming back alive helps us as well; you are the first heroes of the Alliance. Many people will look to you in the coming days, Jyn." 

Then a hint of the woman peeked back in. "If you were going to steal a ship, escape the Alliance, and go back to your old life -- or build a new one far away from the conflict -- then now would be the time. Speak to any of the flight supervisors, they'll find you an appropriate ship to steal. You deserve, at least, your freedom."

Jyn set her jaw and lifted it, giving it her father's imperious tilt. "Ersos don't run from our destiny."

"At least, not for long," Mon Mothma agreed, and swept out. 

This time the voice from Chirrut's bed was all Chirrut. "The Force is strong with you, Jyn."

"I've never been Force sensitive," Jyn said, because she couldn't think what else to say.

Chirrut smiled. "It's there just the same. Now, help me up, I need a meal before Baze tears into me for foolishness." 

"Is it you doing this? Is it Baze?"

Chirrut shrugged, sitting up. "It is the Force." 

"Who -- " Jyn started, but Chirrut tumbled forward, expecting her to catch him, and by the time she'd settled him at a nearby table, gone to the mess, and brought him back a meal, she'd forgotten she was even going to ask. 

***

Many years later -- many, many years -- Luke Skywalker and Rey, the desert girl with no last name, arrived at the Resistance headquarters to a greeting party. Luke did not look happy about it as he descended the ramp from the Falcon. 

"I ought to lock you up, except you'd only stay locked up if you wanted and you've always been a brat," said one of them. 

"Director Erso," Luke said. Rey looked back and forth between them. Luke added, "Rey, this is Director Erso. She's the Resistance's spymaster."

"Intelligence director," Erso corrected. 

"And I wouldn't throw around words like spymaster in front of your sister, Skywalker," another one said. He had big dark eyes, knowing and clever, and under the anger in them Rey sensed a certain rough affection. 

"And this is Admiral Rook," Luke continued. "He and I flew together in Rogue Squadron during the Rebellion."

"If you can call what you did flying," Rook remarked. He turned to her, and she didn't flinch. "I've been speaking with your friend, the former stormtrooper. We have much in common. He's awake and eager to see you."

She looked to Luke, who gave a bare nod, and Rey followed Admiral Rook, who was already walking away. 

"Cassian Andor," Luke said. "You, I did not expect to see."

"Strange," Cassian said. "You didn't think I'd abandon my life's work, did you?" 

"Well," Luke admitted, "I know something about doing that."

Which was when someone said, "Luke Skywalker, the almost-last of the Jedi."

Luke blinked. 

Behind him, under the hull of the Millennium Falcon, stood a grey-haired man leaning on a staff, milky eyes fixed on him. 

"Awkward as a title, I think, Baze," the man said. Another man emerged from under the hatch, shrugging. 

"Baze Malbus?" Luke asked. "Chirrut _Îmwe_? I thought they _made you up!_ "

"We had work to do for the Rebellion," Baze said. "Work we could not do if we were known to the Rebellion too well. Better to be thought of as a story or a joke."

"So we died in the medbay on Yavin," Chirrut said. 

"Sort of," Baze amended. "And then we went off to serve in our own way."

"And now we're back," Chirrut said. "We decided it was time to take on a new student."

Luke's eyes filled with sadness. The unspoken name of Ben Solo hung in the air like a ghost. "You would do better than I can," he admitted. 

"Oh, we weren't talking about her," Chirrut said, pale eyes still fixed on his face, and Baze grinned. 

Behind him, so did Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor, as they walked back towards the base, arms linked. 

_A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, hope survived._

 

 

**Some time later...**

_"Hey," Luke said. "If you and Jyn and Bodhi are all here, where's K-2SO?"_

_"He's on special assignment," Cassian replied._

 

 

**Aboard an Imperial cruiser:**

The medical droid was malfunctioning, Kylo was sure of it. It would wake him up to dose him with the wrong medications at the wrong times; it gave him sedatives before important meetings; it always seemed to grab him exactly where he was injured. And sometimes it would simply shut down and stand in the corner, inanimate, especially when he had important discussions with high-ranking Imperial officers. 

"Gentler, you bastard droid!" he said, as the medical droid _yet again_ put its probes directly into the wound. 

"My apologies, Patient Ren."

"Get out of here," Kylo hissed. 

"I wish only to serve, Patient Ren."

"Get out!" he shouted, and swung a hand, Force-thrusting the droid back through the door and into the corridor beyond. 

"Understood, Patient Ren," K-2SO said agreeably. 

Honestly. The things he did for Bodhi Rook.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [One Solid Kick by copperbadge [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11442186) by [anna_unfolding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_unfolding/pseuds/anna_unfolding), [joyinrepetition](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joyinrepetition/pseuds/joyinrepetition), [Krytella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krytella/pseuds/Krytella), [lattice_frames](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lattice_frames/pseuds/lattice_frames), [marianas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marianas/pseuds/marianas), [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314), [the_dragongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dragongirl/pseuds/the_dragongirl)




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